What A Free Society Offers To The

Should Our Moral Beliefs Really Prove To Be Dependent On Factual Assumptions Shown To Be Incorrect, It Would Be Hardly Moral To Defend Them By Refusing To Acknowledge The Facts.

The Power Which A Multiple Millionaire, Who May Be My Neighbor And Perhaps My Employer, Has Over Me Is Very Much Less Than That Which The Smallest "functionaire" Possesses Who Wields The Coercive Power Of The State, And On Whose Desecration It Depends Whether And How I Am Allowed To Live Or To Work.

At A Time When Most Movements That Are Thought To Be Progressive Advocate Further Encroachments On Individual Liberty, Those Who Cherish Freedom Are Likely To Expend Their Energies In Opposition. In This They Find Themselves Much Of The Time On The Same Side As Those Who Habitually Resist Change.

The Advantage Of A Free Market Is That It Allows Millions Of Decision-makers To Respond Individually To Freely Determined Prices, Allocating Resources - Labor, Capital And Human Ingenuity - In A Manner That Can't Be Mimicked By A Central Plan, However Brilliant The Central Planner.

When We Ask What Ought To Be The Relative Remunerations Of A Nurse Or A Butcher, Or A Coal Miner And A Judge At A High Court, Of The Deep Sea Diver Of The Cleaner Of Sewers, Of The Organiser Of A New Industry And A Jockey, Of The Inspector Of Taxes And The Inventor Of A Life-saving Drug, Of The Jet-pilot Or The Professor Of Mathematics, The Appeal To 'social Justice' Does Not Give Us The Slightest Help In Deciding.